Indian data analytics company Course5 Intelligence said it has raised $25 million in its second tranche of funding led by Nuvama’s crossover fund series, a month after closing $28 million at a valuation of $250-275 million.
The company has raised a total of $53 million in this round, just shy of its expectation to raise $55 million.
The latest round also witnessed participation from Carnelian Asset Advisors Pvt Ltd and affiliates.
The company said the funding will be used for M&As in the range of $80 million. Course5 Intelligence said it has a structured M&A agenda, looking at synergistic assets in the US, UK, and India each in the range of $10-20 million in revenue as well as smaller deep-tech AI startups.
“Our endeavour would be to consummate at least two acquisitions within the next 12 months. Our sweet spot would be companies in the revenue range of $10-25 million,” Ashwin Mittal, Chairman and CEO of Course5 Intelligence, told DealStreetAsia.
The company said it plans to cross $100 million in revenue in the next fiscal year.
“Increase in complexity, type, and usage of data across the world and significant advancement in technologies, including AI, are driving adoption of data-driven intelligence through enterprises like never before across the globe. We see this as a structural long-term trend and strongly believe that Course5 is very well-placed to benefit from this wave of acceleration…” Pranav Parikh, Managing Partner, Nuvama Private Equity, said.
Course5’s big funding round comes despite the ongoing funding winter driven by multiple factors such as rate hikes in developed markets, the geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe, and COVID-related supply-chain shocks.
Indian startups raised a total of $3.36-billion funding in the first quarter of 2023, down 72% from the last year, according to data from DealStreetAsia DATA VANTAGE‘s latest report India Deal Review: Q1 2023.
At this run rate, Indian startups are expected to raise just over $13 billion in 2023. In comparison, startups had raised $12 billion in the first quarter of 2022 alone. For the entire 2022, startup fundraising stood at $26.5 billion, down sharply from the $46 billion raised in 2021.
Course5 filed its draft prospectus in Jan 2022 and is planning to launch its IPO in the next 18 months.
The IPO plans come at a time when experts argue this is not the best time to pursue a public offering in India as several IPO-bound companies have either postponed or called off their plans. Several others have trimmed their IPO target size to more modest levels.
